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Review

Far more convincing a depiction of a nightmarish future even than A Clockwork Orange, Utopia is a miniature masterpiece. I defy anyone not to read it in one sitting. -- Sholto Byrnes The Independent A wonderful novel, a real addition to Arabic literature Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building Towfik paints a vivid picture of Egypt in 2023... a disturbing dystopic vision. The Guardian, UK A disturbing dystopic vision -- Eric Brown The Guardian, UK A highly imaginative novel that has succeeded in injecting new blood into the current [Arabic] literary scene. The Daily News, Egypt A chilling portrait of a scary new world without morals or scruples... Gulf News Thoroughly enjoyable... which seems - like Ahmed Mourad's Vertigo and Khaled Al-Khamissi's Taxi before it- to resonate loudly in the moments after the Arab Spring. The National Towfik's real strength is in his imaginative observations of the predicaments of the tattered social fabric of the future. Bidoun Ahmed Khaled Towfik's Utopia was translated in 2010, by Chip Rossetti, and published by a forward-thinking BQFP. This year, the book is a finalist for the English-language Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award. -- M. Lynx Qualey Arablit.com A politically charged fable about human cruelty, where a prince and a pauper exchange roles as predator and prey... the cat-and-mouse between them reads a bit like Patricia Highsmith's mysteries. As with Highsmith or even Philip K. Dick, an irresistible sense of unease propels the reader forward... The "story" of the Arab Spring as it's been told in the U.S. has largely been one of technology: Twitter and other social media enabling heretofore-impossible collaborations and coalitions. Utopia, where technology fades into the background and the hunting is done with a knife, highlights the revolution's human dimensions. Hopefully, Utopia represents the first of many translations of Towfik's novels. -- Scott Selisker Los Angeles Review of Books

About the Author

Ahmed Khaled Tawfik was born in 1962 and is probably the Arab world’s bestselling author of science fiction and horror. He has written more than 200 books.

Customer Reviews

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6 reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Five Star, Must Read!May 31 2012

By
G. I. Basterian
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

If you want to understand the Egyptian Revolution, read this book. As I am not a great reviewer, I'll quote extensively from a review in the Independent from SUNDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2011 which hits it out of the park. UTOPIA is especially important because the author is only 49, prolific, a popularist and a huge hit among Egyptian youth.

According to the Independent:

"The year is 2023. Our unnamed protagonist wakes up. He urinates, smokes, eats, pukes, has sex with the African maid, swigs whisky, scrawls a slogan on the wall of his home, dances, pukes again and eats some more. "In one hour, I've done everything, and there's nothing left in life that interests me or that I want." Welcome to Utopia, the gated, US Marine-protected colony on the north Egyptian coast to which the wealthy retreated when the country's society collapsed in the first decade of the 21st century.

In Ahmed Towfik's chilling, gripping vision of an alternative future, translated from the Arabic, Israel had built its own version of the Suez Canal, tourism revenues were insufficient to pay for services and the Middle East's petroleum reserves became worthless after the US invention of a new super-fuel. The Egyptian middle class disappeared, as did the apparatus of the state. Those who remained outside Utopia, The Others, sunk into bestiality. No one read books, poverty dismantled "the barricades of morality", and hunger, disease and violence became the norm.

Utopia's youth grow up utterly spoiled, devoid of feeling for their fellow men. Money has eroded traditions of respect and religion, and in their international enclave, none of the children are given Arabic names, setting them further apart from The Others and from their history. (They are puzzled as to why Israel should once have been considered an enemy.) Every conceivable pleasure is available to them, and they have no care for how their riches were obtained. As our arrogant but intelligent teenage protagonist tells us: "This was my land and this was my world. I was born here. If my father stole these rights, then they had become my birthright, and I wouldn't give them up for beggars and street whores." Only one thrill remains to the young who are inured to appreciation by a lifetime of instant gratification - and it lies beyond the barbed wire and security fences of Utopia.

The narrator and his girlfriend du jour knock out two of The Others who provide slave labour in Utopia, put on their rags and take the workers' bus to venture outside. Their mission: to find a suitable Other to kill, and then hack off a limb to bring back as a trophy of their hunt. If they find themselves in trouble, one call to a parent will have a Marine helicopter hovering over them within minutes, ready to gun down any maddened savages who are threatening to tear them apart. A mild reproach is all that will be visited upon them by way of chastisement on their return.

Only it doesn't quite turn out that way, and the couple find themselves at risk of rape, mutilation and death. They are only saved by Gaber, an Other who has managed to retain a shred of dignity and self-respect from his pre-lapsarian life, but whose every act of kindness they ultimately repay with cruelty and malice.

Towfik's novel is bleak and his characters are almost without any redeeming qualities. It is also utterly compelling. It is no surprise to find that, not only is the author a medical professor (the anatomical descriptions are gruesomely real) but, according to his publishers, he is "the Arab world's best-selling author of horror and fantasy genres". Far more convincing a depiction of a nightmarish future even than A Clockwork Orange, Utopia is a miniature masterpiece. I defy anyone not to read it in one sitting."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Making arabic literature accessible for non-ArabsJuly 17 2014

By
sean oleary
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback
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I am a non-native speaker of arabic with a high degree of proficiency. My background mainly deals with media arabic and I am trying to delve into literary arabic. I have tried reading the classics from Najib Mahfouz and Taha Hussein, but have found it incredibly difficult and not relevant to modern times. This book is easier to read and has an interesting story. I love that there are modern arabic authors writing science fiction because it makes the language and even the culture more accessible for a a non-arab.

Short and scaryAug. 16 2013

By
daverz
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover
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Pretty graphic novel about Egypt in 2023, where the privileged few live in a walled city protected by ex-US military and the Others live under inhumane conditions on the outside. A series of events leads to a surprise ending. Cynical and dark but very entertaining and thought-provoking.

This is a short and rather horrific novel about an ...Jan. 11 2015

By
Lucy
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Kindle Edition
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This is a short and rather horrific novel about an Egyptian dystopia. It is written in the typical Egyptian/Arabic style with philosophy interweaved in the narrative. Of interest to anyone knowing modern day Egypt. But this is a depressing book.

Great book! For any lover of Dystopian Sci-FiFeb. 17 2015

By
Jake
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback
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Great book! For any lover of Dystopian Sci-Fi, check this book out, whether in Arabic or English. It has a very eerie feel, kind of like the British Sci-Fi series Black Mirror, but with a lot of political and cultural references.